


Rewind

by Mistflyer1102



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, Averted Major Character Death, M/M, Minor Violence, Pseudoscience, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistflyer1102/pseuds/Mistflyer1102
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q goes back to the moment James died, determined to save him.</p><p>The aftermath doesn't go as neatly as he would have preferred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“Last time, Q, we don’t have a lot of energy for another jump.”_

“I know, Eve, I don’t think I can take another one anyway,” Q murmured into the microphone as he sipped his tea, the hot liquid nearly spilling from a trembling mug. He could see his lover, James Bond, just across the street, arguing playfully with an outdoor bookseller as Brussels residents walked past him. No one except Eve—his Eve, not the Eve in London—knew he sat here, waiting for that moment he'd relived six times over.  _In three minutes, a sniper will line up his rifle and pull the trigger, and I’ll have to hear the screams for the seventh time. Once through the earpiece, six in person._ His fingers tightened on the mug handle, still remembering the raging helplessness he’d felt through the comms.

 _“Q, we have a problem._ ”

“What?” Q asked, careful to keep his voice even and from reacting sharply; James still had his back to him, laughing now, and Q remembered offering his own commentary on the books that James picked up, little remarks to make the agent laugh. “What’s the problem?” he whispered, setting the mug down as he checked his watch. One more minute left; the sniper would be taking aim now at James’s back; once he fired, Eve would finally locate him for her kill shot. Q placed some bills down on the table before standing up, moving closer to the street even though the only constant warning of the time travel venture— _do not interact with those in the past—_ continued running through his mind. “What’s the problem?” he whispered, heart pounding as he stared at James's back.

“ _I think the sniper saw me and changed position, I don’t know where he is.”_

“Fuck, are you serious?” Q moved closer to the edge of the café, trying to seek out the sniper. He checked his watch: thirty seconds. “He may not fire at the same place or time then, he’ll have to set back up and will be in a different position than last time. You need to adjust accordingly,” he whispered, searching furiously. He had no idea how long James planned to stand in front of the bookseller since in fifteen seconds, James would be dead and the sniper would be gone.

Then he saw the glint of sun against the glass scope.

_I can't do this again. I'm sorry, Eve._

The sniper had moved to a more awkward position, but was still feasibly in range. Without thinking, Q darted into the street, ignoring Eve’s yells over the earpiece, and turned to drive his shoulder straight in between James’s shoulder blades, the  _bang_ of the gunshot echoing around the street as Q collided into James and fell down on top of the agent, books flying and people screaming. Fire seared his shoulder as he curled to protect himself from a few paperbacks seconds before a second  _bang_  echoed throughout the streets.  _“Shit!”_ he yelped when James abruptly moved underneath him, shoving him off to the side and grabbing his uninjured shoulder to haul him to the side. “Fuck, that hurts!”

He almost wished he could capture James’s stunned expression as the agent looked down at him, his own gun out and aimed at Q. “But…London, you’re in London,” James murmured as he lowered the gun, checking Q over before pulling his jacket off to put pressure on the injury. “Q, what the  _fuck_  are you doing here?” James growled, voice wobbly as he reached for the glasses and slipped them back on with shaking hands.

Q grimaced when he saw that James still wore the earpiece, and could only imagine what his past self was thinking. “I’m really sorry,” he said in a quiet voice. “I--things, changed onward now, I’m sorry, I’ll always be sorry,” he said before surging forward, slamming foreheads with James. Earning a swift curse as James reared back, clutching his forehead, Q twisted out of his grip and scrambled to his feet, already running as James swiftly got up after him.  _I’m not going to last very long, James isn’t injured and he’s a fucking double-oh_.

A car horn blared, and he looked up in time to see a car in the opposite lane cut across and into oncoming traffic, the passenger door already opening as Q slowed down long enough to tumble into the vehicle. Eve swore as she pulled the car back into the street, weaving in and out of traffic before pulling into the proper lanes again. Q groaned as the pain began creeping into the edge of his consciousness, and he sighed when he glanced into the side mirror. “He’s following us, still on the sidewalk.”

“Of course he is. I’m heading to Bern in faint hopes he’ll observe the Swiss neutrality laws,” Eve said grimly. “Why the  _fuck_ did you do that? You know we were only allowed to go back to kill the fucking sniper so he’d stop picking the rest of us off in our time!”

“Did you kill him, then?” Q snapped, struggling to get his cardigan off to apply more pressure.

“Yes, but James wasn’t supposed to—”

“I don’t fucking care. And if we break up in the future and are living totally different lives when you and I return to our time,  _I don’t care. At least he’ll still be alive!_ ” Q shouted, eyes pressed closed because of the sheer  _pain_  that was creeping into the edges of his consciousness, cardigan hems slipping out of his fingers. “Just…just let me pass out for now. Please.” His breath hitched as he remembered the echoed pain from witnessing James’s death the first time, and knew he would never go through it again.

Eve nodded, lips pressed into a thin line as she headed south.


	2. Chapter 2

“How are you feeling now?” Eve asked quietly as she got ready to leave the hotel room they were currently hiding in. Outside, Q could hear the sounds of Bern residents, and slumped further against his pillow on his hotel bed, leaning his head against the headboard while ignoring the spasm of pain in his shoulder.

“Still feeling sick, upset, in pain, and unsure of whom to murder because my time travel gadget somehow got smashed,” Q said, leaning forward on the bed to poke at the flattened remains of the device he’d created back in his own time, ten years into an apparently different future, for the purpose of traveling through time itself.  _Years of research, gone,_  he thought crossly, already trying to recall how to fix it. “Even with extreme circumstances, he  _still_  manages to destroy my equipment. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” he said, reaching up to rub the makeshift bandage.

“Well, that’s Bond for you. It must have broken when he threw you off and you rolled onto the ground,” Eve said, frowning as she zipped up her coat. “Well, I’m going to get some supplies, especially since it looks like we’ll be here for a little while until you can fix that. For the love of God, do not talk to James or wander off.”

“Like I’m going to do either when I know that MI6 is hunting me down,” Q muttered under his breath as he finally moved away from the table. He glanced at her and said, “As many painkillers as you can legally obtain.”

Eve sighed. “I’ll try. Don’t open the door until I mention the name of someone that we both know from our time,” she warned before leaving the room, the door closing behind her with a soft  _click_. In a fit of pique, Q stuck his tongue out at her retreating back.

_But why are we still in the past if we had no reason to go?_

He stared at the little device, still unsure as to what failed to work.

Q sighed, lowering his head in defeat as he heard a faint _click_  from the hotel room door and the faint creak as the door opening. “Did you forget something? Because if it’s money, I don’t have any since I spent it all on that tea,” he asked idly as he picked up the device to study the circuitry, listening to vaguely familiar footsteps entering but pausing at the threshold. “I hate to say this, but I think something still isn’t right, we should have gone straight back or at least shouldn’t be here.”

“Really?” a sickeningly familiar voice said, one that caused Q’s heart to stop in pained recognition and his stomach to drop in fear. “Can I have that as a confession?”

Q looked up sharply to see James leaning against the doorframe, and he didn’t bother to be discreet as he located the earpiece— _light still blinking, it’s still transmitting to headquarters_ —before slowly setting his device back down on the bedspread. He took a few deep breaths to calm down before making eye contact with James, who looked well rested compared to when Q crashed into him. “No, you may not have that as a confession since there’s nothing to confess to,” Q said, careful to keep his voice calm and measured as he reached for the device and pocketed it. Raising his chin, he asked, “Why are you here, double-oh seven?”

James flinched, and Q guiltily realized that he had said the same line before in the past—which meant that his past self would be under investigation for suspicion of treason. The agent recovered however, and took a step into the room. “Who the hell are you?” James growled a moment later, his hand resting near the hidden knife that Q remembered equipping him with _—it’s hard to forget when you relive the same day over._  “Who the hell are you?” he repeated as he stepped closer.

Q swallowed, glancing between the knife, the hidden Walther, back to the earpiece, and then back at James.  _He’s off-mission now, he has to be, he wouldn’t deliberately ditch a mission just because it looks like I have a doppelganger._ Remembering that James could detect lies, he could only stare helplessly as James slowly approached him, heart twisting in anguish when he realized that this would be the first time in ten years he could touch James again, warm skin with a steady pulse with familiar scarred hands.  _He’ll never believe me._

Panic seized him, and he tried to run, throwing the broken device at James— _Eve can yell at me later for it_ —and ran as James jerked to get out of the way. He made for the window, praying that Eve had chosen a room that was at least near one so that he could scramble out. Opening the window as he heard James charging after him, he looked down and nearly froze in place.

Eve had found a fire escape all right, but so had James’s backup. Alec Trevelyan offered a sympathetic smile as Q felt an arm wrap around his waist and pull him away from the window. He twisted around to try and headbutt James, only to be thrown on Eve’s bed, his shoulder afire with pain. James easily dodged a wild kick, and Q strained to break free even as he felt James pulling his arms back and slipping the handcuffs on. “No, no, no, don’t you fucking dare— _”_ he tried to shout as Alec clambered into the room, closing the window behind him.

“Can’t wait to hear about this one,” Alec remarked as James pulled Q back up.

“Damn you both,  _we just fucking saved both of you_ ,” Q snarled as James pulled him back towards the door, forcing him down the hall towards the lifts. Alec moved to walk beside James, both men silent as they pushed him forward.

Q glanced over his shoulder in time to see Eve emerge from the stairwell. Her eyes widened when she saw the three of them, and she paused when Q mouthed “ _Save yourself”_  seconds before he was shoved into the lift, the doors closing a moment later.


	3. Chapter 3

“Listen to me, you’re making a mistake both here and in—”

“Shut up,” James growled, fingers digging harshly into Q’s shoulder as he and Alec hauled Q into what Q realized was an empty hotel room not far from where the agents had finally cornered and caught him. “Just shut up, I don’t want to hear a damn thing from you in his voice, do you understand?” he snarled, Q staring at him for a few moments in confusion until he caught onto James’s meaning, glancing briefly at the still-blinking earpiece. Q grunted when James forced him into a seat by the small table near the television, and then froze when James pulled out the Walther— _fully loaded, he wouldn’t have had a chance to use it quite yet_ —and switched the safety off, cold blue eyes never looking away from him.

“Listen, there’s a perfectly illogical explanation that goes with all of this, and I would  _really_ appreciate it if you didn’t kill me right away,” Q said, biting his lip when he saw that Alec had his broken time-travel device, turning it over in his hands before setting it aside on a nearby table. “And it started with  _your_  death!” he said quickly, ignoring the agent’s confused expression. “Brussels, you were supposed to die in Brussels because of that sniper, I would know, I had to listen to it six fucking times before—” his words were cut off when James abruptly reached over and pushed the chair back, tipping Q as he slammed the chair into the wall.

“Stop  _lying_ ,” James hissed, leaning forward. “Who the fuck are you?”

“James, everything I say is going to be a lie because my truths are going to be lies to you. There’s no way to convince you otherwise…unless…” Q stopped as the thought occurred to him. He closed his eyes when he felt James’s hand settle over his throat. “Unless I can tell you something that I wouldn’t know otherwise without cleaning out our shared flat… like I had to do after your death,” he said, glancing involuntarily at the earpiece in James’s ear.

“I’m keeping it in,” James said, fingers tightening around his throat. Q closed his eyes in an attempt to calm himself, relaxed his shoulders, and then looked back up at James, staring at the blue eyes he hadn’t seen in years. He hesitated, and then let his shoulders relaxed, aware that struggling would only end badly.

“That day in Brussels, a sniper shot you in the back,” he said, never looking away from James. “Killed you instantly. We, er, Eve and I, buried you at sea a week later. I was cleaning the flat out of all your things. Eve put it in storage so that I would be able to access it later if I wanted—I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. Anyway, I was cleaning out the closet, all the boxes you left on the top shelf, and I found a small one that, erm, I think you meant to give me at some point…I remember being angry when I found it, but I never let it go afterwards,” he whispered, watching James’s eyes for any sign of comprehension or disbelief, but found none.

“Where are the contents now?”

“In my pocket, it’s all I have left of you now,” Q said quietly, stiffening when James leaned forward to check his pockets. “The sniper that killed you began picking us all off one by one, there was a slow takeover that MI6 never caught because the man was careful and I was grieving too much to help notice the early warning signs,” he admitted quietly, looking up at Alec, who was now paying careful attention. “You stayed for another few years before the sniper went after you, he was picking the double-ohs off and kept at it until M decided that it was too dangerous to maintain the program. It wasn’t until we’d lost that I decided we could try to stop the sniper early, go back in time to now because it was the only moment we were ever sure of his location.” He hesitated, and then added, “It was a long shot, honestly, and this was going to be our final attempt because we didn’t have the strength for another jump. I just…I just couldn’t stand seeing it happen again.”

James stilled, and Q knew he’d found the object in the pocket. “Is that what your device does, then? Takes you back in time?” James said, slowly pulling away as he mercifully left the object in Q’s pocket.

“Yes, but it’s broken now and I need to fix it. You can take a blood sample if you really don’t think it’s me. Just tell the officers at London to leave, er, my counterpart alone, he’s supposed to be there, I’m not,” Q said even as James leaned forward to begin tying him to the chair with rappelling cord that Q remembered supplying him with.  _Damn._

“I’ve already summoned one of the field medics in the area to come and do the blood test, that’s a bit of a story,” Alec said, setting the device aside while eyeing Q warily. James shook his head.

“We’ll do the blood tests, but I suspect he’s telling the truth,” James said, turning to face Alec. “He’s never lied to me yet, and I know what his tells are.”

“But this isn’t our quartermaster, James, he’s admitted as much. You don’t know what he’s been up to since then, and if he’s gotten better at lying. He would have to be, in order to survive in a word he’s hinted at,” Alec pointed out. James graciously conceded the point with a nod before sitting down nearby, keeping his Walther aimed at Q.

Q sighed and settled down for what he hoped wasn’t a long wait.

_Eve, please, please stay out of trouble._

_Including harassing these two even if it’s to get me back._


	4. Chapter 4

“May I ask you a question?”

“Depends. Are you asking, or is someone else?” Q asked, cracking an eye open to study James, who hadn’t spoken or moved from his spot in the chair while field medics poked at Q and then left some hours before. The rope was starting to cut into his arms despite the clothing in between, but Q dared not complain. Not with an angered James still pointing a gun in his direction and Alec pacing around the room like a caged predator.  _Besides, I endured worse than this, when I was briefly captured during the Fall,_  he thought, shifting slightly in his bonds to ease the ache in his shoulder.

“I am.” James’s sharp eyes didn’t look away from Q, but Q didn’t believe him. Not with the earpiece still blinking, still transmitting, sending everything to London. Q couldn’t remember if he had programmed a small camera for visuals, but figured that James kept his superiors in the loop anyway. “How much time passed, between this…jump and my…death?” he asked, leaning forward slightly.

“Twenty years. It took five to create the device, I was making stuff up along the way, so there’s no telling how long it will take to repair it,” he said, eyeing its remains on the bedside table between the two narrow hotel beds. He opened his mouth to ask James if that was a sufficient answer, but fell silent, not willing to provoke either Double-O while he was still tied up.  _Maybe if I could get ahold of Eve’s, and use hers as a comparison to figure out what goes where…_

“Are you alone?” James asked, breaking into Q’s thoughts.

“No. Eve was with me, she picked me up in the car back in Brussels. She was supposed to be getting medication, painkillers, for my shoulder,” Q said, not bothering to debate whether to be honest or lie. “She came with me to shoot the sniper that killed you once he came out to kill you, it took us several attempts to draw the sniper out. Luckily, the sniper spotted her this time and changed positions, making it easier for her to get him. But recently, I told her to back off when the two of you were hauling me to the lifts, whether she listened to me is still debatable.”

“Fuck, she won’t be too far behind then,” Alec said, getting up as he switched the Walther’s safety off and disappeared through the door. James watched him go before turning back to Q.

“Q…how many times have you done this jump?” James asked, frowning as he leaned forward, watching him carefully.

Q drew in a slow, shuddering breath as he closed his eyes, trying to count each time he saw or heard James fall. “I heard you the first time through the comms, and then five more times in person,” he said finally, unable to look at James in the eye and stared at the ground instead. “This would have been the seventh time…if I had stayed put. I don’t even know how long I’ve been doing this, speaking in linear terms. We sometimes stay for a few hours after, sometimes we try right again. Only once have we spent the night in Brussels before trying again. I just…I just couldn’t sit through it again, I was emotionally compromised from the start, and Farrows knew that, but no one else knew how to work the devices so I  _had_  to go, which was a stupid decis—”

Warm, strong and familiar hands on his upper shoulders broke into his voice-cracked monologue, and he only looked up dumbly as James knelt in front of him, the Walther sitting on the seat of the chair. “James… James, don’t, please, I know me. Please don’t,” he said, looking away when James tried to lean forward. “Just…just don’t leave him by dying, do you understand?” he said quietly, looking away again when James tried to make eye contact with him.

“I understand,” James said quietly, brow furrowing when Q finally looked back at him. Q swallowed back the urge to surrender to the comfort of the embrace he suspected that James would give him, a soft kiss, something,  _anything_  of the intimacy he used to have with the agent, something to ease the loneliness of the last twenty years.  _But at the same time, I can’t get attached. James won’t be there when I get back, and I’ll only hurt myself now. Fuck_.

James seemed to take the hint, and was backing off when the door opened and Alec returned, empty-handed but with a grim expression. “Test results came back,” he said, looking between James and Q. “Our Quartermaster also underwent blood tests, just in case the records were tampered with, and, well, it’s a fucking match.”

_Thank God._

On one hand, Q could now go free. On the other, it meant that he was now free to find Eve and head back to his own time. Leaving the agents. Leaving James. He remained silent, staring ahead as he tried to blink back tears, only looking away from the agents as Alec untied him from the chair. James remained still as Q stood up, rubbing his upper arms, before he moved to retrieve the remains of the device from the bedside table. “The sniper’s paymaster is Richard Levenson, he works as a custodian in Whitehall. He uses his job as a way to eavesdrop on politicians and maneuver around them,” he said without looking at either of them. “Try not to get killed, please,” he said before slipping out the door unchallenged.

He waited until he was stumbling blurry-eyed in the stairwell before he turned and slammed his fist into the wall, the anger, grief, and bitterness washing away the pain as he sank to his knees on the landing, sobs wracking his frame as long-forgotten memories sank into his consciousness and brought back every detail he had hoped to never see again.

_Damn it, James, and I was doing so well with not remembering before you came._


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey Q, I’m back and I’ve got something that may help.”

“Unless it’s the tools and pieces from the list that I asked you to get, then I’m not interested,” Q said, ignoring Eve in favor of looking at the gadget innards. The two of them were coming up on thirty-six hours in the past, a little over twenty-four since leaving MI6 custody. It was the longest he had ever gone without a jump either back to that moment or to his current time. Frowning when Eve didn’t immediately reply, he sighed and looked up to humor her, only to have his blood run cold when he saw the two Double-O agents standing behind Eve in the doorway of their small hotel room.

Without thinking, he pointed his screwdriver at the two of them. “You let me go, you let  _her_  go or so help me God, I will hurt you before we leave,” he warned, focusing on keeping his voice steady as he spoke.

“Actually, we volunteered to help,” Alec said, placing a smaller bag on the table. Q didn’t miss the way he glanced at James, who shrugged with one shoulder before pulling up another chair and settling down across the table. Q swallowed back the ache in his heart at the familiar motion— _how many times did James do that when it was just the two of us in the labs?_ —but carefully looked back at the gadgets even as Alec said, “We’ve also put surveillance on Levenson, but he hasn’t done anything so far.”

“Chances are he suspects something, he was always eerily good about predicting one’s moves,” Eve said, frowning when Q snorted.

“Clearly he suspects something, since you and I are still here in twenty fifteen discussing this, instead of being transported to wherever so that the timeline can fix itself,” Q said, gesturing in her direction with the screwdriver before going back to his work.  _Just a few more wires, and then we can finally go._  He reached over and pawed through the bag that Alec had set down, making a face at a few tools before selecting one.

“Maybe you went back for another reason then,” James suggested quietly, catching Q’s attention. “It’s been the talk of Q-Branch for the last few hours, trying to figure out how time travel works with you still here and your counterpart still in London. Popular theory is that the timelines will merge at some point, or that yours will alter to allow for this…change,” he said, something flickering in his eyes that made Q want to reach out and comfort. “Unless your extensive research suggests something else?”

Q shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t have time to study that aspect of time travel. Speaking of which, I may give you the schematics of this device to give to my counterpart, make the whole creation thing easier if it becomes necessary,” he said, ignoring James in favor of the device again. He hesitated, and then looked up at James. “I don’t want you to ever to think that you’re supposed to be dead, I would do this again if I had to. Even if there’s some cosmic clusterfuck in the future because of this, I would save your life again.”

“One might accuse you of being selfish,” James remarked, carefully leaning forward so that they were closer. Eve, Q noticed out of the corner of his eye, had gestured Alec to the other side of the room, and the two of them were speaking quietly.

Q sighed. “James, in the last twenty years, you died, my mother died, MI6 personnel I had called friend died. I’ve sold tools, tech, information, and hired my skills out in order to help get the money needed to smuggle refugees out of London in addition for more supplies. And I’m not the only one who is now down to one or two personal possessions while living in a little matchbox for a room, with a roommate,” he said quietly, voice cracking slightly. “I  _want_  to be selfish just this once, I want to be with you.”

“I know, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be there when you go back,” James said quietly, blue eyes never leaving Q’s. “If I have to die in order to ensure either your safety or that of others, I will do it. We swore an oath when we joined MI6.  Until then, I won’t leave your side.”

 _But you already did, you moron._  Q almost said as much until he caught the earpiece in James’s ear. He nodded stiffly, setting his jaw to resist the urge to lash out, to shake some sense into the agent, anything to release the grief, fury and frustration building up in his chest at the refusal— _James is right, as ever_. “Where I come from, James, MI6 doesn’t exist anymore. But I know, I still remember, your dedication to the country above all else. I will continue to respect that from now on,” he said instead through clenched teeth as he glanced pointedly at the earpiece before leaning back in his chair, to pour all of his energy into fixing the goddamn device.

He refused to feel guilty about saving James’s life, even with the ever-present risk of messing up the timeline hovering over his head.

With each tool that James silently handed to him, like he used to do when it was just the two of them in the labs in the months before everything went to hell, Q felt a sharp, pulsating pain in his heart. He didn’t speak, he didn’t need to; James carefully wrapped a hand in his own at one point, when Q fought off drowsiness in an attempt to finish the device soon. He felt oddly calm by the time he finished, the repaired device sitting in front of him next to its twin.

“Hang on, here you go,” Q said quietly after a moment, tugging his hand free so that he could pull the folded schematics out of his pocket. “Get the parts early, before everything goes down. They should be cheap now, but use the saved money towards supplies. Things will go scarce very fast,” he said quietly, avoiding James’s gaze as he passed the paper over.

“You really think it will happen again?” Alec asked, standing up as Eve walked over and picked up her device.

“Well, we’re still here. I figured if it didn’t happen, I would have never had a need to travel back in time. Ergo, I wouldn’t be here right now,” Q said as he pinned the device to his cardigan, gesturing for the two Double-Os to back away. “If I don’t make it back with you, just tell Farrows that my device broke and I died on the return trip, don’t you _dare_  come looking for me,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Eve, who nodded.

He slowly exhaled, looking up at James for what he knew was the final time.  _No return trips after this, too risky,_  he thought mournfully as Eve saluted. “Gentlemen, behave, and bring back your equipment intact,” he said, swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat while his fingers fumbled with his device, trying to turn the years on the dial before finally managing to press the green button on the side.

Without warning, James abruptly crossed the room towards them, panic surging in Q’s limbs as the agent got closer. “James, what the fuck are you—”

James kissed him, hard and bruising, before letting him go and retreating back to Alec’s side, Q barely catching the mouthed ‘ _I love you’_ before the time stream overwhelmed Q and tugged him back into its crushing embrace, his scream of James’s name disappearing with him.

* * *

The first thing he saw when he woke up was the blue sky through the crack in the cavern, where he and Eve had chosen to make the first jump.  _Out of the way, out of sight_ , he thought dimly as he saw an all too familiar drone cross the crack, too high in the sky to notice them. But he definitely recognized the insignia along the drone’s side.

_We failed. It still happened. We failed, I failed, and James is still dead._

Q didn’t say anything as Eve checked him over, just curled into a tight ball on the dank ground and lay there, unable to do anything but process the last few hours while he still could remember.


	6. Chapter 6

“It’s strange. I thought that warning them would change something.”

“Yes, well, something could have happened that cost James his life, we’ll never know until we look,” Eve pointed out quietly, rubbing Q’s wrist between her fingers. Q didn’t respond right away, just stared at his meal in the underground mess hall before poking an unidentifiable green rubbery vegetable with a fork. “You even told me once that you don’t fully understand how time stream works,” she said after a moment, glancing up at him. “Maybe it just straightened itself out…taking James with it,” she said finally, Q flinching at her words.

“I…I just wanted…” Q stopped, closing his eyes as his voice caught. He swallowed before he said, “I thought things would be different, with the sniper gone. That maybe we would have won, James would still be alive, more of  _us_  would be alive, that sort of thing.” He shrugged, shaking his head before sipping his tea. “I should probably get back to work, there’s nothing I can do to bring him back,” he said firmly, looking up to meet Eve’s gaze. “Honor his memory and move on.”

Eve offered a watery smile. “Q, no one would blame you if you called in sick today, and you can have a chance to recover from the run,” she said, retracting her hand when he pulled his wrist back.

“My roommate is frankly the last person I want to see right now, even if I do have to go make sure he hasn’t taken over my side of the room in the last five days,” Q said, frowning as he recalled his brief conversation with Farrows when trying to report in: the former MI5 director had dropped everything, too stunned to speak when he saw Q, but then launched straight into a lecture that made zero sense to Q— _something about disappearing for five days and being a complete and utter unprofessional arse_ —before kicking Q out of his office altogether.

“Maybe I will go back to my room, and deal with it now before my roommate gets back from wherever,” he said finally, standing up and collecting his tray and rubbish, the familiar creaking of doors echoing behind him. Eve glanced over his shoulder at the newcomers, and her eyes widened, but Q ignored her. “I also have to see if we’re overdue for another supply run, five days will have been the longest we’ve gone without one if Miraz didn’t think to make arrangements while I was gone. I wouldn’t put it past him,” he said, sighing as he thought of his impromptu assistant.

Eve nodded. “Um, Q—”

“I’ll see you at dinner,” he said, standing up and leaving the mess through the exit near the back; it was the quickest way to quarters, and he needed something to take his mind off the failed run. He pulled out the two devices that had enabled him to move through the time stream and turned them over in his hands. He could sense the pull of temptation to look up James’s death in the records, for a date he could go back to and pull the agent’s arse out of trouble  _again_.

_Unless he went down because he was defending someone._

Q bit back the surge of grief—tears wouldn’t bring James back, nothing would—and steeled himself to think of the moment. He paused in front of his quarters and typed in his own passcode, frowning when the panel flashed red with a soft _beep_. _Did Tavers lock me out again? I’m going to kill him._ Gritting his teeth, he carefully pulled the access panel out before tucking the panel and the two devices into his pockets. Leaning closer, he began to pick at the wiring, wishing momentarily he’d thought to go to his work labs first, to get the appropriate tools. 

_“Q!”_

Q felt his blood run cold at the familiar voice, almost disbelieving the image as he turned around to face the speaker. It was James, his James, wearing what looked like scratched body armor with blood streaks on his face. Q also distantly noted a faint handprint on the side of James’s cheek, but forgot about it when James swiftly caught him before he could stumble backwards. “ _James_?” he rasped, staring disbelieving into those blue, blue eyes as hands grasped his forearms to keep him upright.

“Yes, yes, it’s me…I take it that all went well?” James asked, reaching up to frame Q’s face in his hands, blue eyes furrowed in worry. “Are you all right?”

Q just gaped at him. “You  _died_. I had to go back and save your fucking _arse_ ,” he rasped, watching as confusion crossed James’s eyes. “The last time I saw you, you—”

“And the last time I saw you, you told me that you had to do something important, but secret. So I covered your arse while you were gone,” James interrupted, brow furrowing as he shifted his grip to keep Q standing; Q did not know why his knees weren’t responding to his attempts to remain standing. James seemed to sense this, and slowly lowered the two of them to the floor, the cold seeping through Q’s trousers to skin. “…Is everything all right?”

“Bern?” Q guessed, staring at the agent.

James nodded slowly. “I gave you that slip of paper when I got back, remember? Slept on the sofa for a week because you were still angry about being manhandled into Medical by security for drawing blood, and even the promise of new gadgets couldn’t soothe your ire,” he said, frowning when Q gaped at him. “Don’t you remember?”

 _No. Or am I the one going crazy and completely imagined the Fall that happened without James, before the jump?_ Without thinking, Q rested a hand on his trouser pocket, feeling the imprint of the ring through the fabric, and remembered the tug in his chest when he discovered the ring in the back of the closet, hidden under a pile of James’s discarded possessions where Q would never go if James had been alive. _No, that definitely happened. Did I cause the Fall, then, by saving James and changing that point in the timeline?_ Swallowing back the twinge of guilt, Q reached up and touched James’s face, trembling as James gently cradled the side of his face before leaning forward for a gentle kiss. Q’s breath hitched as he relaxed into James’s embrace, with echoes of longing— _for never having done this in years_ —mixed with relief— _for returning safe and sound_ —and he wrapped his arms tightly around James’s neck, aware that he was crying, but for some odd reason, he just didn’t care.

“I love you,” he whispered into James’s ear when they pulled apart for breath, and closed his eyes when James’s grip tightened and the agent sought another kiss. He hesitated, and then pulled back to better face James. “Where were you just now?” he whispered, allowing James to continue holding him.

“Helping Miraz with a supply run, to maintain the illusion that you were still here. Then Eve hit me when Alec and I arrived in the mess hall,” James said, grimacing slightly at the memory. He hesitated, and then quietly added, “Levenson…we saw him, briefly while he was with his troops, but it was too far to try with a sniper rifle.”

Q nodded, silently processing the information. _Had I only hastened the timeline, by warning them?_ “I’ll talk to …just hold me right now,” he whispered a moment later, trying to ignore the twinge of guilt for now as he curled back into James’s embrace.

_I’m--we're going to be all right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support! I hope you enjoyed reading _Rewind!_
> 
> Mistflyer


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